Features

NOTE: You can listen to a full-lengthRealAudio feed of Dan Goldin’s speech here on AVweb, and also read the prepared text furnished by NASA. Have you ever listened to any of AVweb’s audio streams?Well, this is the time. NASA administrator Dan Goldin addressed the 1998 AOPA conventionin Palm Springs, California on Saturday and had the […]

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I like to use a provocative “headline” to grab your attention, and sucker you into clicking that button to read my column. The headline will generally be related to the content, but in ways you might not expect. If you’re reading this, you fell for it! Seriously, […]

NTSB Identification: SEA98FA047. Accident occurred MAR-19-98 at PORTLAND, OR Aircraft: Aerospatiale SN-601, registration: N600RA Injuries: 4 Uninjured. History of Flight On March 19, 1998, at 0918 Pacific standard time, an Aerospatiale SN-601 Corvette,N600RA, owned by R. L. Riemenschneider Enterprises of Redmond, Oregon, and operated byRedmond Flight Center of Redmond, Oregon under contract to the aircraft […]

Several years ago our local sheriff tried to check out in a Cessna L-19 Bird Dog he had obtained for the county following some major thefts at local farms. It did not go well. OK, that’s an understatement. He set some sort of record for groundloops on landing. He went through two instructors trying to […]

To be or not to be? William Shakespeare, 1636 To spin or not to spin? Howard Fried, 1998 Ever since spin training was deleted from the primary trainingrequirements way back in 1957 there has been a raging controversyin the aviation education community over whether it was a mistake todrop spin training and whether or not […]

Anyone who likes checkrides has to be nuts. One of the toughest things about being a DE (FAA Designated Examiner) is knowing that no one really wants to be in the airplane with me, and even when a successful checkride is done,the checkee is probably going to say bad things about me in the bar, […]

Thecontemporary Unlimited Class of air racing celebrated its 35th birthday in grand style atthe National Championship Air Races held at Stead Field near Reno, Nevada, September14-20, 1998. This year’s event featured 26 aircraft and pilots who qualified to competefor the prestigious bronze, silver and gold race trophies. Included on the entry list weresome familiar names […]

Welcome to the pilots lounge at our virtual airport, a place where anyone who likes flying is welcome. It is not a big place, only two runways, one paved, one grass. It has a couple non-precision instrument approaches, some gliders on the grass, ski planes in the winter, a fair sized office and pilot’s lounge […]

Photos by Richard Allnutt Click on these images for larger, high-resolution photos.   Brian Sanders’ Sea Fury “Argonaut”. Bruce Lockwood’s “Dago Red,” winner of the Gold Trophy race. This photo was taken at the start of Saturday’s heat race, just before Voodoo lost its elevator trim tab. Photos by Kevin Grantham Click on these images […]

Much has been written about the fact that judgement is very difficult,if not impossible, to teach. We have all seen examples of flightstudents exercising poor judgement, and even on fairly rare occasionsflight instructors demonstrating faulty judgement, but when botha student and an instructor exercise poor judgement in a singleepisode it is bound to lead to […]